Political Strategic Studies

Russia's security-oriented pragmatism in Afghanistan: Moscow's strategy redefined after the Taliban gained power

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

fardin hashemi

PhD in International Relations, Tajik National University, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Dushanbe, Tajikistan

https://doi.org/10.22054/qpss.2026.89723.3757
Abstract
Russia is one of the few countries that has actively sought to strengthen its relations with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power. This is despite the fact that Russia supported the 2001 US attack on the Taliban and even included the Taliban on its list of terrorist groups. This change in approach has been examined from various angles. This study claims that security issues are a priority for Russia. Given that Russia does not share a border with Afghanistan, the question is how security issues have changed Russia's policy towards Afghanistan during the Taliban era? Given that Russia has traditionally been the security provider of Central Asian countries as its sphere of influence, The hypothesis is that maintaining security and stability in Central Asia, which borders Afghanistan, is the main pillar of Russia's calculations in Afghanistan. The research findings, obtained using the process tracing method, show that Russia perceives instability in Afghanistan through the lens of spillover effects to its backyard in Central Asia and trying to prevent the growth of terrorist groups in this country by supporting the Taliban, acting more actively and pragmatically.

Keywords

Taliban government
Russian foreign policy towards Afghanistan
extremist and terrorist groups
Central Asia
process tracking method
Subjects
Political Strategic Studies

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 06 June 2026

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